Too Late for the Big Time

Jonathan Jones went to the famous London degree shows at Goldsmiths College, former home to Michael Craig-Martin and Damien Hirst, to find out what graduating artists aspire to and where they might hope to see their careers go in the new world of diminished global expectations:

I’ve come to Goldsmiths to see how final-year MA students are feeling about their futures now, in the shadow of recession. Four budding artists from the class of 2009 meet me in a lecture room and I quickly sense that everything has changed for this generation. Their idea of a life in art has little in common with the fiercely ambitious artists the college was turning out in the early 1990s. Is it the economy? Is it the sheer number of artists competing for attention in today’s Britain? Have tutors’ attitudes changed here since the retirement of Craig-Martin? Whatever it is, these students seem to have no illusions at all about their chances of making it big. […]

Jon Moscow, also in his 30s, feels art is his vocation and he’s not too bothered what the world makes of him and his fellow students: “We consider that we are artists already – I became an artist for the art, not for the art world.” Moscow, from Cleethorpes, used to be a chartered accountant. But, during the 1990s, when Hirst’s generation were becoming famous, he quit to follow his artistic urge. He has exhibited in Düsseldorf and London. His room in the degree show is filled with sculptures and significant objects, arranged in a surreal style. “I make rooms,” he says of his work, before highlighting one of its drawbacks: “How do you sell a room?”

Much may have changed in art schools, but one thing seems to have stayed the same: the cool demeanour of the students. You could almost imagine this lot in a band together, with Moscow as the Jarvis Cocker figure. Goldsmiths is renowned for equipping its charges for the reality of a career in art: if charm is part of what it takes, they have plenty. However, while all four are determined to put art at the centre of their lives, they are sceptical about actually making a living from it, especially during a recession. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” says Hotte. “But you can’t say, ‘the art market looks bad so I’ll stop producing work.’ It wouldn’t make sense.”